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New Year, New You
New Year, New You That was plastered on the flier I received a day ago on my doorstep. Pretty stereotypical phrase, but the offer was too good to pass up. Three months of a free gym membership – a nice gym for that matter – and all I had to do was attend a New Year’s Eve party at the gym. Spend the night getting fit instead of getting drunk? Hell, I didn’t have anything better to do I figured, and I’d been meaning to get in shape for a while now. But here I am, sitting in a locker room, writing this for all of you on my phone because I can’t think of a better option for myself right now. It’s a few minutes until midnight, and I’ve got time to kill, so settle in, because you won’t believe it unless you know the whole story. First off, I know it sounds lame to spend my night at a gym, but I don’t live near family, my girlfriend is out of the country, and my friend and his wife just wanted to spend the night at home. Besides, dedication is the only way to see change, and what better way to show dedication than by skipping out on one of the biggest binge nights of the year? I had to start somewhere if I expected to get back into shape and since partying got me to where I am now, I figured skipping New Year’s was a good idea. See, I used to play basketball in high school. I was pretty good. Good enough to get a scholarship for my college years. But the freshman fifteen hit me hard. I was partying too much. I gained weight, stopped training, got dropped from the team and had to quit school. It sucked, but I came through alright. Except I never got back in shape. Since then, I’ve been a lump sitting at a cubicle desk, reading nosleep stories when I should be working. Not that I mind that, but it’d be nice if I could play basketball again. Sometimes I’m winded from a walk upstairs, so I doubt I could handle a full game right now. So, after I got off work today, I went home, packed a bag of gym clothes, and headed over. The gym is called Transformations. I’d looked it up online when I got the flier and it seemed nice. When I pulled up, I thought to myself that it sounded like some kind of new age clinic. I was surprised when the inside just looked like a normal gym. They weren’t even offering green smoothies at the front counter or anything like that. They did have punch though, which they gave me a cup of when I handed my flier over to the young-looking girl behind the counter. It was healthy punch, a pure fruit mixture, artificial sugar too, but it tasted better than protein smoothies. They had a protein snack mix on the table too, full of nuts and dried fruit and oats. There were maybe sixteen other people there taking advantage of the offer, and eight staff members there to keep us stocked with refreshments and towels as we worked out, or to help us along with our exercises. Us guests mingled for a bit as we looked over what the gym had to offer. After maybe an hour of getting to know each other and the staff, people started going to the locker rooms to change and begin their New Year off right with an evening of exercise. The manager announced over a loudspeaker that there was a special bonus available to anyone who stayed until midnight and participated in at least three activity sessions. It was a full year of membership completely free. That was a lot of work, but I felt like I was up for it, especially for such a deal. I claimed a locker and put on my workout clothes, then started off light with some cardio on the treadmill. There was a woman next to me. We talked for a bit while we exercised, mostly about the reason we were spending our nights here instead of with friends. She was a frumpy housewife who was dedicated to losing weight – her words, not mine. Nice lady, and I could’ve talked to her for longer, but I wanted to spend some time at the weights. I got spotted by an employee as I benched a paltry hundred pounds. I guess it was an okay amount considering I hadn’t benched anything for a few years, but I used to be able to do way more, so I was a little disheartened by that. The employee was a good motivator though. He kept me going and encouraged me to get out of that mindset. It wasn’t about who I used to be, but who I would become. I finished my set feeling powerful. But I was tired already and was all too happy to take a bit of a break. A couple people tapped out early, before it even hit ten o’clock. I overheard the manager tell them that they’d still get their three months free, but they’d miss out on the special offer. The people still left, probably hoping to get some time in at a party. Not me. I was in it for the long haul. I was told that being spotted and coached by a staff member counted as one activity, so for the second I joined in on a fifteen-minute spin class. The instructor was funny, and not in the ha-ha way, but in the, this person is a little off, way. She kept talking about the revolutions of the wheel, how it was in a constant state of change and transformation. I didn’t know if she was just spewing this nonsense for the whole New Year promo, or if she was actually like that, but I noted that I’d want to skip her classes all the same. I was pretty worn out when all was said and done. More people left by eleven, so that there were only eight of us now. The next class was at midnight, so we had some downtime, and I didn’t want to be so worn out that I couldn’t participate. I decided to walk around and check out all the areas that I could. I looked around the facilities, the personal areas I mean, like the showers and stuff. They actually had a sauna, which was pretty cool. There was a narrow passage behind the sauna that had some junk in the way, but it didn’t look forbidden, so I squeezed through to see what was behind it. It was a whole wellness and massage center. At least, that’s what the label on the door led me to believe. “Full-body manipulation” it read. I pushed past some old exercise equipment and a stack of yoga mats and opened the door in the narrow passage. When I stepped inside, I saw a line of machines. The strangest massage chairs I’ve ever seen, I thought to myself. One that looked like a juice press, another that looked like a torture rack, one with tubes that looked like a pasta roller or a laundry mangle. At the end of the row I saw a weird vat. I thought maybe a mud bath, but the liquid inside was dark and runny. I had a moment of curiosity where my mind insisted that I touch it to find out what it was. But my survival instinct staid my hand, and I’m glad it did, because as my palm hovered over the vat, a hand shot out, splashing my shirt with the fluid as I recoiled back. The hand flopped lazily about as if it had no bones, looking for purchase on the rim of the vat but unable to find it. I immediately ran away. There was another door on the wall opposite the machines. I ran towards it, but heard voices on the other side. I turned around and ducked behind a nearby screen partition. I recognized the voices of two employees, one of them the trainer for the spin class. I heard them talk about getting the attendees ready for midnight, but their conversation was cut off by the splashing in the vat. They pulled the struggling body out. I chanced a peek and saw a limp frame dangling like a lopsided sandbag, as if everything inside of them had been liquefied. “This one is ready,” the male employee said. “I know it’s frightening being in that liquid for so many weeks,” the female trainer said to the body, “but you'll be a brand new person soon. No one leaves Transformations the same way they walked in, and that’s a promise we aim to keep.” They hoisted the body to the first machine, the one that looked like a juice press. They laid the body down and the machine slowly lowered onto them. There was a wet slosh like a balloon bursting. While their backs were turned, I ran. I went out the way I had come in. After squeezing past all the junk in the narrow hall, I thought I was safe, but I saw two employees talking to each other in the doorway leading to the gym. They spotted me, and it didn’t take a second for them to put everything together. I bolted for the men's locker room as they chased after me. I could’ve stayed and fought, or maybe pushed my way through, but I was already feeling winded, and my body just told me to hide. So I pushed a bench in front of the door and waited. But the employees didn’t try to break it down. Putting my ear to the door, I listened, and jumped in shock when I heard the manager speak. “It’s almost midnight, and you earned your special offer,” he said. “You’re not leaving the same man who came in. We all wanted to change for the better, and so we did, brand new people, brand new identities. You will change too. You won’t even remember the person you are now when we're done. We’ll wait until midnight, then we’ll come get you for the last session.” The voice faded, but I didn’t doubt that they were still out there, waiting for me. I assume they’re still out there now, just waiting for the year to change. I’ve been sitting here for about twenty minutes, thinking about what I should do before I decided to write this just so there’s a record of the old me. Whoever I become, I just hope they can play basketball. Category:Fanfic Category:Creepypasta